


Stone Cold

by taxingtaurus



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M, Laurel's POV from season 1 to season 4, Other, Pro Laurel Lance, acknowledging Laurel's pain in seasons 1 and 2, inspired by song lyrics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-03
Updated: 2016-06-03
Packaged: 2018-07-11 23:36:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7075339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taxingtaurus/pseuds/taxingtaurus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The local newscaster announces the “miraculous return of millionaire Oliver Queen” when Laurel Lance is visiting the grave dedicated to her baby sister.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stone Cold

**Author's Note:**

> Just had some crazy Laurel Lance feels today and needed to get them off my chest. 
> 
> Disclaimer: I'm actually quite a few episodes behind on the new season, so I haven't actually seen Laurel's death yet. Apologies for inaccuracies in advance. I also haven't seen the first couple seasons of Arrow in a while, so some events might be a little out of order. 
> 
> Title and lyrics from Demi Lovato's "Stone Cold".

_Stone cold, stone cold_

_You see me standing, but I'm dying on the floor_

_Stone cold, stone cold_

_Maybe if I don't cry, I won't feel anymore_

 

The local newscaster announces the “miraculous return of millionaire Oliver Queen” when Laurel Lance is visiting the grave dedicated to her baby sister. The beautiful plot, near her grandfather’s, that Detective Lance spared no expense to cover in flowers on a weekly basis; green and undisturbed and serene.

But it’s still a plot. And Laurel knows that better than most. It’s a rough expanse of earth that wears with wind and footsteps and rain. It still looks like the graves around it, still inspires pity and condolences. It’s rigid and respectful and sad. But unlike the others, this plot doesn’t actually contain a body, because they never found Sara.

Laurel crouches gracefully near the headstone, her muscles getting entirely too used to resting in this position. They’d pulled at the start of her daily visits, tendons contracting tightly in protest, but they’ve long since learned in their hours of practice. Her hand reaches gently toward the stone, but she can’t bear to touch it. She hasn’t told anyone, but she’s had nightmares that start like this.

She kneels next to the rock that bears her sister’s name; the name that she treasured the day her mother carried a wailing pink thing through the threshold; the name she whispered to a fussy baby who would only calm at her sister’s voice; the name she loved because it belonged to her favorite person in the world. She whispers and coos, sometimes. Other times she begs Sara not to go, as though she can turn back the tides that swept her family away. Then she touches the gravestone, and it crumbles to dust as soon as her fingers brush it. The last memory of Sara, reduced to rubble, forgotten and abandoned entirely too early.

She’s terrified to touch the unrelenting stone.

So she pulls her hand back, and starts to speak.

“Hey, Sara. I…I know I haven’t come by in a few days. It’s been hectic at work lately. And Tommy still tries to ask me out. A lot, actually.” She tries to laugh, remembering the way Sara would roll her eyes. She never did much to hide how obnoxious she found Tommy and Oliver… But the rock as sharp as steel that lodged in her heart the day the loves of her life vanished squashes the urge.

“It…I should actually be at work right now, but I couldn’t…” she stops, looking up at the dusky sky to try and stem the tears threatening to overflow.

Dammit, she will _not_ fall apart. Not before her father can take care of himself again, not when her entire life revolves around strength and sincerity and power, and not in front of Sara.

 _But it’s not really Sara, is it?_ that traitorous voice whispers, and it’s almost too much. Again. Like every fucking day since the person she trusted most in the world left with her baby sister and never came home.

“I just…” she breathes in deeply, “I just wanted to talk to you. Dad’s not doing well, but you probably know that. He just misses you. We all do. But I’m sure you know that, too. If…I just can’t believe you’re gone, Sara. I refuse… I know I always ask, but if there was some way you could let us know that you’re okay…”

And then the news she’s hoped she’d hear for five years now reaches her cell phone.

*****

But it’s not _really_ the news she’s hoped for, because Oliver came home alone. Without Sara, without Robert, without the easy laugh or playful eyes or biting humor.

He’s different. And she _knows_ he’s different, despite all his attempts to convince her otherwise. His Playboy smile stays firmly in place, his antics with Tommy never change, and he still has that lovesick puppy look in his eyes when he talks to her. And it’s…confusing.

She had fully expected to pine for Oliver for the rest of her life, in love and in grief the way only lovers split unnaturally soon can. She expected her heart to splinter when she met another Oliver. She expected the pain and loss and the never quite requited love of a dead man haunting her memories. Not… _this_. Not a man who wears her first love’s skin and has his voice and says he’s happy for her and Tommy one moment and says he still loves her in the next.

She can’t reconcile the two men in her mind: the Oliver that left and the one that came home.

*****

It isn’t until a year later, when she’s lost and hurt and confused and so incredibly angry at Oliver, for Sara and Tommy and the things in her life she can’t control that Laurel realizes they were never meant to be. They were never meant to love each other completely. Their love was meant to spark and burn furiously and wildly until nothing was left; until not even they remained. A Romeo and Juliet story that ended in tragedy and loss and pain.

She accepts it. She moves on, keeps Tommy’s memory close to her heart and recovers. A phoenix, rising from the ashes she used to think would smother her. She still loves Oliver, but it’s different now. It’s not arguing for the sake of making up later. It’s not sorrow and detachment when he acts like another person. It’s not even as simple as waiting for a phone call.

She’s not really sure what it is, to be honest. It’s confusing and heartbreaking and life-affirming all at once. But she knows it’s what’s best for both of them.

 

_Stone cold, baby_

_God knows I tried to feel_

_Happy for you_

_Know that I am, even if I_

_Can't understand, I'll take the pain_

_Give me the truth, me and my heart_

_We'll make it through_

_If happy is her, I'm happy for you_

 

Until it isn’t Helena or McKenna or Isabel that Oliver claims his love for. It’s _Sara_.

And she cannot understand how Oliver can do this to her. _Again_. It’s nearly enough to shatter her, the surprise at seeing her sister alive and the fury at knowing she was near and _never said anything_ working to make her reactions too sharp and violent.

She _knows_ it’s not fair to pin her problems on Sara or Oliver or their relationship, but she is in pain. She’s still trying to figure out how to live with a sister back from the dead, knowing there are things Oliver won’t tell her, throwing herself back into a job from which she’d been forcefully ejected. She’d been left for _years_ nearly on her own, caring for an alcoholic father she sometimes believed wished she had died instead of Sara.

Except Sara isn’t dead. She’s at the dinner table, making jokes and holding Oliver’s hand and bringing her parents back together. Yet another thing Laurel had failed to do in Sara’s absence.

It hurts, and it’s raw, and she yells at Oliver more than he deserves. But she knows it isn’t fair.

She practices apologizing to Oliver that night, using a childhood toy in place of a photo, hoping it will make everything easier. It doesn’t.

“If Sara makes you happy, Oliver, then I’m happy for you.”

 

_Stone cold, stone cold_

_You're dancing with her, while I'm staring at my phone_

_Stone cold, stone cold_

_I was your amber, but now she's your shade of gold_

But being happy for him, knowing what’s best, recognizing that she doesn’t love Oliver that way anymore, doesn’t change the fact that seeing him dance with Felicity is like ice to Laurel’s heart.

She’s seen him with a lot of women in the four years he’s been home, but seeing him with Felicity is something else entirely.

Laurel _adores_ Felicity. She’s smart and kind and genuinely wants to keep her and the others safe. She’s a ray of sunshine in the darkness that threatens to overwhelm them in their line of work. And she’s _perfect_ for Oliver.

 

_Stone cold, baby_

_God knows I tried to feel_

_Happy for you_

_Know that I am, even if I_

_Can't understand, I'll take the pain_

_Give me the truth, me and my heart_

_We'll make it through_

_If happy is her, I'm happy for you_

Laurel was blind to the pain Oliver constantly inflicted on himself when he first returned home, but he’s long since let that mask fall. Not completely, of course. He still bears the brunt of it in silence, but Laurel has always known him too well to believe the sincerity in his voice. He’s always carrying so much guilt and pain that doesn’t belong to him, but Felicity helps it fade. She can _see_ it.

There’s a physical change when Oliver is around Felicity. His shoulders loosen, he smiles more, the weight of the world isn’t quite so heavy. He’s _happy_.

Laurel may have been the first love of his life, but Felicity is clearly his last. It’s water versus wine, infatuation versus love, amber versus gold. It’s not the same, and though she aches at seeing them together – her first memories of their relationship mixing hopelessly with her memories of Tommy – she’s happy for them.

She may not understand why fate has dealt her these particular cards, why she always seems fit to lose the people closest to her, but she knows it’s shaped her into the person she is. And she wouldn’t trade it for anything.

 

_Don't wanna be stone cold, stone_

_I wish I could mend this but here's my goodbye_

_Oh, I'm happy for you_

_Know that I am, even if I_

_Can't understand_

_If happy is her, If happy is her_

_I'm happy for you_

Not even when she’s dying, lying in a hospital bed whose discomfort has long stopped bothering her. The room smells less sterile, the sheets less scratchy, the pain more of a dull ache than a sharp stab, and she knows her time is running out. Quickly.

She wishes her last goodbye was to her father, or Sara, or Thea, but the pounding of her heart is getting fainter, and she knows that this is her last chance to tell Oliver the things he needs to hear before she’s gone. She knows he’ll blame himself for her death, for dragging her into a world she never should have known, for hurting her and abandoning her and separating her from her sister. Maybe she wishes she could comfort her father, let her sister know how much she loves her, tell Thea that she’s nothing like Merlyn, but as Oliver pulls her picture from his wallet, she thinks he may need this more than they do.

She’s nearly delirious from the blood loss and shock. She’s almost positive she even tells Oliver he was the love of her life, when she knows that’s not quite true. Well, she supposes he _was_ the one great love of her life; her relationship with Tommy shrouded by doubt and ended entirely too soon, and her fading far too quickly to get another chance at domestic bliss. But through her confusion, she manages to remind him that he needs to be happy. That he _deserves_ happiness despite his faults. And if he won’t be happy without Felicity, he needs to try and fix it.

She tries to tell him that she understands why he’s done what he’s done, that she’s happy for him, that she forgives him, but the breath gets caught in her throat when a familiar lopsided smile appears in front of her.

 _Tommy_. Glowing and happy and grinning and waiting for her. And it’s exactly what she’d hoped for when her time came. No more pain, no more expectations, and another chance with the man she knew she loved before he was taken from her.

Then Laurel – ADA, vigilante, sister, friend, Dinah Laurel Lance, always trying to save the world – takes her last breath, and knows pure peace for the first time in nine years.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Feel free to leave comments and kudos! 
> 
> And feel free to chat or prompt me on tumblr, username: taxingtaurus.


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